
3.2^. \ jo^vAAvX/d^ 









Gass . 

Book ^ B \? 3 



o2 7^ 

1775. MECKLENBURG'S 1882^ 

DECLARATION OF 'INDEPENDENCE D 

107th ANNIVERSABT. 



SENATOR BAYARD'S GREAT SPEEOHtl 

WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY 

SENATORS RANSOM AND YANCE. 



Senator M. W. Kansom, by request, 
read the Declaration, introduced by 
eloquent and patriotic allusions to 
the Declaration itself, and to the 
men who made it, referring in terras 
highly eulogistic to the distinguished 
representatives from other States who 
were present. The Declaration having 
been read, the Senator made some 
remarks which were worth their weight 
in gold. Speaking of the difficulty of 
proving the Declaration at this remote 
date he said : "Great truths do not al- 
ways depend on human testimony— they 
are like God's light, they live forever, 
are eternal and stand without question. 
We stand to-day in the blaze and light 
of a^hundred and seven years of civili- 
zation, and a hundred years from now 
unborn generations will come to kneel 
at the shrine and pay homage to the 
altars of liberty erected in Mecklenburg 
county in 1775— this Bethlehem of the 
new continent. Nothing can dim its 
luster. It will shine on and from gen- 
eration to generation it will be the 
guiding star of nations in the years 
which. are to come." 



After whiQh the orator of the day,. 
Hon. Thos. F. Bayard, of Delaware^. 
was introduced by Senator Z. B. Vance., 
as follows : 

Mbn of Mecklenbl'ec :— I con-- 
gratulate you to-day upon this happy; 
occasion which has brought together 
so many of our people, citizens and 
strangers, to bear living witness to ihtf 
virtues and to the patriotiSiii of our 
forefathers. I rejoice to know that our 
country and people at large are pros- 
perous and happy, and that they are* 
once more enjoyine in peace the divine 
fruits of that industry which is guided.' 
by uprightness. One huudied and sev- 
en years ago this day, the foundations 
of our liberties were laid broad and 
deep on this spot ; and now that through, 
the intervening years of war and peaces;, 
of rejoicing and sorrt^, through good 
and through evil report, we have con- 
tended earnestly for the^ faith which 
was once delivered to us bj the fath- 
ers, and held fast the form of sound 
words in which they are embedded, we 
have met once more to do them honor. 
We have met to worship once again at 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 






at" by the talons of autocratic power; ^ 
when the very air was filled with ap- 
prehension and uncertainty, and the 
upraised hand of the tyrant put every 
man in peril; when the question 
was: "Who shall bell the cat?" 
A little band of men in a remote 
and inland county of North Carolina, 
were found willing to take the risk,— 
to set their lives upon the hazard of the 
die;— who 

"Freeman stand or 

"Freeman fa'—" * 

were first found ready 

"Freedom's sword to strongly draw." 
Who, whether they pledged "their lives, 
their fortunes and their most sacred 
honor" to maintain their independence 
from the Crown of Great Britain, and 
to the success of the cause of American 
Liberty, on the 20th, or on the 31st of 
May, 1775, without doubt did so in that 
month ;— and who, when they did, step- 
ped in advance of their fellow-colonists 
to do it, at a time when 

"Those behind cried 'Forward!' 
And those In front cried 'back!' " 

The Spartan mother said to her son~ 
"If your sword is short, add a step to 
it"— and the men of Mecklenburg added 
that step, and went down into the dread 
arena of life or death for liberty, grave- 
ly, quietly, and steadily. 

And because they did so, we have as- 
sembled to-day with uncovered heads 
and reverential hearts to do honor to 
their memory ;— to recall their deeds, 
refresh our spirts, and re-invigorate our 
purposes, by draughts from the clear 
spring of their simple and noble ex- 
ample. 

And who were these men,— this un- 
titlied nobility of homespun ? 

It was not amid the blare of trum- 
pets, or surrounded by the pomp and 
circumstance of wealth and power, that 
the grave and deliberate action of the 
men of the county of Mecklenburg was 



the shrine of American liberty, upon 

' the very spot where it was born. And 
what happier conjunction of auspicious 

omens could be found than the fact 
that the High Priest who is to minister 
before us to-day. is one of the noblest, 
truest, and knightliest of all the great 

/American citizens, who ever stood up 
•itt the high places of the Goverment 
(applause) with eloquent tongue, in de- 
fence of constitutional rights and hu- 

• jaaan freedom. 

Such, my fellow-countrymen, is our 
good fortune to-day, and I now intro- 
dace Lim to you, ladies and gentlemen, 
as worthy of all the honor and all the 
respect which you can bestow upon 
3iim, in the person of Thomas F. Bay- 
ard. (Long and continued applause.) 

batakd's speech. 

Ladies and Gentlemen; My Fellow- 
^Countrymen : If I were to follow the 
dictates ®f my own feelings at this mo- 
sment, 1 should cast this manuscript to 
thewiuds; I would speak under the 
laspiration of this place and of this 
people. (Applause.) It would be to 
me a relief to pour forth my heart to 
yeu in unpremeditated strains of grati- 
ttado to God, that the spirit of liberty 
jet ^o dwells and is felt by every man, 
w-oman and child, within the sound of 
my voice. But I came not to give ut- 
terance to mere feeling. I came, so far 
aal-v/as able, to gather the time from 
tfce-varied and engrossing occupations 
of an American legislator, to express 
to you, not sudden emotions, but the 
tleliberate recital and examination of 
the great facts here wrought, more 
than a century ago, and the vitality of 
wfei<;h brings us here again together 
to-dK,y, and will bring our posterity for 
tttany a generation in the long years to 
eoEae, (Applause.) 

In a season of doubt and danger, 
I when the spirit of liberty was "hawked 



SENATOR BAYARD'S S PS BOH. 



taken 107 years ago. The importance 
of the step lay in the great principle of 
political liberty which it asserted, and 
its success was due to the steady force 
of conscientious conviction which ani- 
mated the men who proclaimed it, and 
which dignifies their memories for all 
time. 

In May, 1775, Charlotte was a very 
smalltown, in fact a little village of 
twenty small dwelling houses, sur- 
rounded by the scattered habitations of 
an agricultural and pastoral commu- 
nity. 

Charlotte had been chosen as the 
seat of the Presbyterian college which 
the Legislature of North Carolina had 
chartered, but which charter the King 
had disallowed. It was the centre of 
culture of that part of the province • 
andEphraim Brevard, the draughts- 
man of the "Declaration" had been edu- 
cated at Princeton, New Jersey. 

The men who led that colony to 
America had evidently read and profit- 
ed by the warning of my Lord Bacon 
when in his essay on "Plantations" he 
had told them : 

"It is a shameful and unblessed thing 
to take the scum of evil and wicked and 
degraded men to be the people with 
whom you plant; and not only so, but 
It spoUeth the plantation, and they ever 
live like rogues and not fall to work 
buttelazyanddo mischief and spend 
victuals, and be quickly weary, and 
then certify over to their country to 
the discredit of the plantation." 

Such as these were unknown in that 
settlement. Probably not an individual 
among those inhabitants but who was 
compelled to rely in greater or less de- 
gree upon manual labor for his support 
and in rural simplicity— 

"Along the cool sequestered rale of life 
They kept the nolseleas tenor of their way." 
It is worth while to note the origin 



and stock from which these forefathers 
of Mecklenburg sprung. 

They were nearly all of Scotch-Irish 
descent, and were the children of those 
hardy pioneers who left the north of 
Ireland early in the 18th century and 
came to America. The main column 
came up the Delaware bay and river 
and passing over to the Cumberland ' 
valley from Philadelphia, following 
that valley in its Southerly sweep, made 
their homes in North Carqlina. 

History tells us that these immi- 
grants dwelt for some years on the 
banks of the Delaware, and some of 
their family names remain there yet 
accompanied by honor and respect-the 
Polks. Pattons, Morrisons, Alexanders 
and others; and, it is not therefore al- 
together inappropriate, that after the 
lapse of many generations, a man 
whose forefathers tarried longer on the 
banks of the Delaware, and whose home 
is still there, should make his pilgrim- 
age hither and join with you in reviv- 
ing memories of a glory common to 
us all. 

For I confess to you, fellow country- 
men, the glories of our Union are those 
I value most. lam not insensible to 
local ties, and I feel as much as any, 
the sense of home— in the spot where' 
I was born— but when a theme 
is found and a chorus is raised in which 
all of our countrymen can join, and a 
thrill runs from the Lakes to the Gulf, 
and vibrates along our 13,000 miles of 
sea coast— when a song is sung, of 
which every American knows the 
words, to which every American foot 
keeps step, and of which every heart 
beats the measure— then I feel most the 
true strength and power and worth of 
American citizenship. 

As akin to this thought I copied the 
other day, from the inscription upon an 
engraving of Judge Andrew Pickens 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 



Butler of South Carolina, tbe former 
United States Senator from that State, 
(whose kinsman and successor so well 
and honorably fills his place, and by 
whose presence here to-day, as well as 
that of his distinguished colleague,we all 
are gratified,) the following sentence, 
which was selected from a speech of 
Judge Butler, made long before thecivil 
war.byoneofhiacolleaguesin the Senate 
(my honored father) as descriptive of 
Butler's sentiment and character : 

"How it has happened I cannot tell, 
but from some cause— not certainly de- 
served—Massachusetts and South Caro- 
lina have been made to take opposite 
positions in Federal politics ; nay, more, 
to be made ostensibly bitter adversa- 
ries. If I knew at this moment that all 
political connection was to cease be- 
tween the North and the South, I would, 
as a matter of choice, hang lip in my 
parlor the portraits of such men as 
Adams, Hancock and Sherman, and 
they would be full of historical instruc- 
tion ; one lesson they especially teach, 
never to submit to a wrongful and op- 
jt^ressive exercise of authority., Dio- 
medes was the youngest hero at the 
siege of Troy. His courage was marked 
by promptness and intrepidity and 
compared well with the sagacious and 
perhaps selfish courage of Ulysses. 
Georgia was the youngest sister of the 
thirteen. She had made her pledge in 
the spirit of Diomedes. And, sir, she 
will with her sisters maintain her 
motto: Equality or Independence." 

None of these hardy colonists of 
Mecklenburg would seem to have been 
men of rank, or to have been the de- 
scendants of men of rank. They were 
of the sturdy, hard-working, middle 
class. When their ancestors had been 
forced from Scotland by the destruc- 
tion of their land tenures, and had 
proudly refused to seek their "sheep- 
skins" from manorial lords, and coald 



no longer maintain the tenures whicb 
from time immemorial had been their 
right, they crossed the narrow sea and 
settled in the north of Ireland in th© 
"Kingdom of Ulster." 

There again after a century of strug- 
gle and unrest, they found themselves- 
the victims of renewed dislocations of 
the tenure of their lands, and wearying 
of the uncertainties, and unsubmissive 
to the caprice of arbitrary rulera, they 
made their way across the broad At- 
lantic to a new country, where the 
right to property should have security 
and stability, and where the fruits of 
honest labor could be transmitted ta 
their posterity. 

The school in which they had been 
trained was that of adversity. No one 
can read their public declarations, their 
resolves, their State papers, bills of 
rights and constitutions promulgated 
here in North Carolina, without catch- 
ing the echo ot Magna Charta^and every 
hard won battle for civil and religious- 
liberty in the long history of England. 

Who did not recognize in the resolu- 
tions of Mecklenburg of May, 1175, as. 
read by our honored friend Senator 
Ransom, the spirit and almost the words 
themselves of the great charter, forced 
from the unwilling hand of a treacher- 
ous and tyrannical king by the barons 
who camped upon the field of Runny- 
mede in June, 1215. 

Magna Charta was itself but a revival 
of still more ancient laws and cJharters 
extorted by persistent liberty from 
unwilling power. 

What more did the men of Mecklen- 
burg demand a hundred years ago, than 
was asked at Runnymede nearly seven 
centuries before ? What was asked by 
them then, that we do not ask to-day f 
and which it behooves us to see is not 
withheld to-day? 

"That no freeman shall be seized or 
, imprisoned or dispossessed^or outlawed. 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH, 



'Or in any degree brought to ruin. 

"That no man shall be pursued except 
by the legal judgment of his peers, or by 
the laws of the land. 

♦•That justice and right shall neither 
•be sold nor denied, nor delayed to any 
'man." 

And then mindful that a pure and 
independent judiciary is essential to 
every man's safety, it declared : 

"That judges of assize were to make 
•regular circuits four times a year. 

"That justiciaries were to be chosen 
ft-om among men well versed in law. 

"That royal officers were not to hold 
pleas. 

"That royal Heralds were not to bring 
•men to trial for their own pleasure, nor 
without credible witnesses." 

Here we have the germs of the great 
principle, that the administration of 
justice is to be independent of the po- 
litical administration. iTo matt**r 
whether it be King or Congress, wheth- 
er it be President or Parliament, the 
independence and separation of judi- 
cial from political power is an essential 
that can never be lost sight of —whether 
in England in the I3th century, in 
North Carolina in the ISth century, or 
in South Carolina in the 19th century. 

The Declaration and Eesolves which 
<Gen. Ransom has just read to us, were 
•carried to the first Provincial Congress 
^-^f Korth Carolina, and on April 12th, 
1776, that Congress unanimously adopt- 
■ed this resolution : 

_ Resolv ed, That the delegates for this 
colony in theContinentalJCongress, be 
empowered to concur with the dele- 
:gates of other colonies infdeclaring in- 
■dependence, and forming foreign alli- 
ances ; reserving to this colony the sole 
and exclusive right of forming a con- 
'Stitution and laws for this colony, and 
of appointing delegates from time to 
4ime, under the direction of the Gener- 



al Representative Assembly thereof, to 
meet the.delegates of other colonies." 

Here we see. the men of Mecklen- 
turg, having quickened the feeling and 
the vision of the Provincial Congress 
of their own State, sending an electric 
spark still further on into the councils 
of the Confederated colonies. 

Let the mists and vapors of time be 
dense as they may— let ignorance or 
envy raise what doubts they may as to 
the precise date of the original action 
of the men of Mecklenburg ; of this fact 
t?iere is no doubt ; of this fact there can 
be no contradiction, none so foolhardy 
as to make it; that the resolutioi 
which I have just read to you preceded 
the National Declaration of Independ- 
ence nearly three montfls. It is also 
one month older than the action of the 
Virginia Provincial Congress, which 
also recommended a declaration of Na- 
tional Independence. 

These facts leave the men of Meck- 
lenburg and the State of North Caroli- 
na the admitted leaders of the United 
Colonies in the great march of Ameri- 
can Independence. 

Well might John Adams write to 
Thomaa Jefferson in June, 1819, when 
these papers seemed first to have met 
his eye: 

"You know that if I had possessed it 
I would have made the halls of Con- 
gress to echo and re-echo with it fifteen 
months before your Declaration of In- 
dependence. What a poor, ignorant, 
malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass 
is Tom Paino's Common Sense, in com- 
parison with this paper. Had I known 
it, I would have commented upon it 
from the day you entered Congress un- 
til the 4th of July, 1776. 

"The genuine sense of America at this 
moment was never so well expressed be- 
fore, nor since. Richard Caswell, Wil- 
liam Hooper, Joseph Hewes, the then 



6 



SENATOR BA YARD'S SPEECH. 



representatives of North Carolina in 
Congress, you kn«w as well as I ; and 
you know that the unanimity of the 
States finally depended upon the rote 
of Joseph Hewes, and was finally de- 
termined by him ; and yet, history is to 
ascribe American revolution to Thomas 
Paine ! Sat verbum sapienti." 

Therefore, fellow-citizens, it seems to 
me a matter of little importance, 
whether it was on the 20th day of May 
oron the 31st day of May, 1775, that the 
paper was prepared by Ephraim Bre- 
vard, and signed by Abraham Alexan- 
der as chairman and John McKnitt 
Alexander as secretary, and their 25 
associates ; suffice it to say, it will stand 
forever as a monument of the dignity 
of humanity, all the more impressive 
in its moral force and elevation, be- 
cause of the total absence of that pomp 
of circumstance with which the stage 
managers of history so often seek to 
surround their action. 

The first step in the work of English 
colonization in America was the voyage 
of Amadas and Barlow, Lieutenants of 
Sir Walter Raleigh, who, under the 
charter of Elizabeth, commenced the 
voyage which terminated at Roanoke 
Island in 15S4. 

There is not one in the great sister- 
hood of States who has earlier record, 
or one richer in interest, or more honor- 
able in its facts than North Carolina, 
from the days when its great founder 
united his name and mournful history 
with her own, although he was fated 
never to see the colony or the city in 
which so much of his hopes and pride 
were centered. 

In no spirit of reproach, but in the 
earnest suggestion of friendship, let me 
to-day impress upon you who hear me, 
the need and duty of preserving and 
perpetuating home chronicles. To use 
the language of my beloved preceptor, 



that distinguished son of North Caro- 
lina, Francis L. Hawks : 

"The attempt to preserve the story of 
their childhood's home is the duty of 
every American." 

The glory of our common country be- 
longs to U8 all ; it is built up by the 
contributions of each part, and in no 
spirit of detraction would I remark 
upon the habit of our brethren of New 
England of allowing no occasion and 
no opportunity to hide under a bushel* 
the light of their local history. On the 
contrary I praise and commend them 
for their activity in having forced to 
the front the claims of Massachusetts, 
to be considered the leading spirit in 
the great struggle that led to the inde- 
pendence of the United Colonies. But 
while withholding nothing of due 
acknowledgement from the courage, 
spirit and self-sacrifice of the men of 
New England in "the times that tried 
men's souls," I do make claim for at 
least An equal co-operative share in the 
great work, for their fellow colonists 
whose homes lay further South. 

It was on the 16th of December, lt73» 
that the famous "tea party" of Boston 
took place; which, according to New 
England chroniclers, would seem the 
great revolutionary landmark of spirit- 
ed popular uprising against tyranny. 
The lustre of this event is so brilliant 
in their minds as to pale the ineffectual 
fires of the struggling colonists else;- 
where. 

But let it not be forgotten that more* 
than eight years prior to that date, ear- 
ly in 1765, when His Majesty^s sloop of 
war "Defiance" arrived in Cape Fear 
River, having on board stamped paper 
for use in this colony, that a body of 
citizens, headed by Col. John Ashe and 
Col. Hugh Waddell boarded the vessel; 
took from her the paper and, in one of 
her own boats, conveyed it to the shore ; 
and they compelled Houston, the royal 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 



stamp master for Nortli Carolina, then 
an inmate of the official family of Gov. 
Tryon, to go before the citizens and 
take a solemn oath not to attempt to 
execute his office. 

This was, so far as my readings of 
the history of that period have gone, 
the first, the most spirited and defiant 
act to be found in the records. 

The city of Philadelphia commenced 
opposition to the shipments of tea be- 
fore the city of Boston, and m October, 
1773 learning the arrival of two vessels 
laden with tea, a committee of her citi- 
zens in pursuance of prior public re- 
solves went down the Kiver Dele- 
ware as far as the town of Chester, 
boarded the vessels lying there in the 
stream, ordered them back to England, 
and their command was obeyed. At the 
same time the agents of the East India 
Company were compelled to resign 
their positions. After this, we are told 
by the historian (Bancroft,) Boston 
"adopted the Philadelphia Resolves." 

In New York every preparation was 
made in November 1773 to prevent the 
landing of any tea, and grievous was 
the disappointment of those people that 
the tea ships failed to appear in their 
harbor. And in April 1774 tea-cheets 
were in open daylight tumbled into the 
dock from the decks of the ships that 
came in. 

In Charleston, South Carolina, on De- 
cember 2d, 1773 the consignees of a car- 
go of tea resigned, the tax was refused, 
and the collector of the port was 
obliged to store it in cellars where it 
lay until it rotted. 

Then followed the destruction of the 
tea in Boston harbor.— When, after a 
vast public meeting held on the night 
of December 16, 1773, a body of 40 or 50 
men, all of whom were disguised as In- 
dians, "having posted guards to pre- 
vent the intrusion of spies," proceeded 
on board the ship "D-irtmouth" lying 



at the wharf, and threw overboard her 
cargo of tea. 

The Province of Maryland made its 
early and vigorous contributiors to 
this honorable history. 

In June 1774, it resolved on a cessa- 
tion of intercourse with the mother 
country, and passed resolutions br-a'h- 
ing a spirit of the most determiir-l re- 
sistance to tyranny. A substii prion 
was made for the relief of Bos .»fi. — 
whose port had just been closed i y t he- 
order of Lord North,— and they d eel ar ac 
that Maryland would break off all trade 
or dealing with any colony, province oe 
town, that refused to come iato the 
common league. 

The brigantine "Mary Jane" baving^ 
tea on board consigned to parties in 
Georgetown and Bladensburg, arrived^ 
in St. Mary's River. Instantly the co3s>- 
mittee of Charles county summonedi 
the master and ccinsignee before *hem^ 
They explained that the duty Lj- -^lot 
been paid, and pledged themselves that, 
the tea should be sent back to London. 
With this apology, coupled with the in- 
stant return of the vessel with the tea- 
on board, the committee were satisfied^ 
In October 1774, the brig "Peggy- 
Stewart" arrived at Annapolis, having 
on board a few packages of tea, the da- 
ty having been paid by Mr. Stewart, 
whereupon a public meeting was called^, 
and great excitement ensued, in which ^ 
the life of Mr. Stewart was put in great- 
danger. 

By the interposition of Charles Car- 
roll, of Carrollton, Governor Pace, and 
others, the people were induced to ac- 
cept an apology from Mr. Stewart, 
coupled with his offer to destroy with 
his own hand, the obnoxious vessel and • 
the "detestable weed" as it was called 
in the language of the day. According- 
ly the ship was run aground at Wind- 
mill Point, at the mouth of the Severn 
river, fired by the hand of her owner^ 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 



and utterly- destroyed, in the presence 
of 5,000 people who lined the banks. 

At Hagerstown in Maryland, about 
the same time, one John Parks was 
compelled to walk "bare-headed to the 
market-place, bearing lighted candles 
in his hand, and there destroy certain 
boxes of bis own tea upon which the 
tax had been paid. 

These acts it will be observed were 
not committed by disguised men, nor 
by night; but openly in the face of day, 
by men well known to the royal authori- 
ties, and who did not flinch from any 
of the cciisequeuces of their bold deeds. 
Let us theretore,when we commemo- 
^rate the the spirited act of our brethren 
<of M-^sjic.' ''tv rot forget *hp evrn 
inoi . ST ii c ; ■ uot of their c«. J 'J u- 
tors fc' lii .ie i •r'.Ln r South and who have 
been Jets careful to place upou record 
those facts, in which to-day all Ameri- 
cans avow their pride. 

Do you not agreee with me therefore 
'that it is well worth while, nay, that it 
is an obvious duty, that local historical 
societies should be instituted, into 
which contributions of records, corres- 
pondtncf^, all the material relating to 
interesting periods in our histoiy as a 
;Peop*e, should be carefully gathered ? 

It ib dblighb'ul to observe in the his- 
tory of that early day how little trace 
of local jealousy exhibited itself, how 
^'None were for faction and all for the 
State." When tlie port of Boston was 
closed by Lord North's act, Charleston 
an South Carolina, was the first to min- 
ister to the wants of Boston and sent 
early in June, 1774, 2U0 barrels ot rice, 
promi9inj» 800 more. Wilmington, in 
Nortli Carolina raised and sent prompt- 
ly £2000 in currency. Delaware devised 
plans for regular and systematic relief. 
Maryland and Virginia gave liberally 
•from their store; the great Washington 
himself heading the subscription list 
<with £")0, p.'iying : 



"We are not contending against pay- 
ing the duty of three pence on tea; it is 
the right, only, to lay the tax we dis- 
pute." 

It is a pleasant thing, I say, to observe 
the words of cheer and brotherhood 
that ran all along the Atlantic coast, 
and made the cause of Boston the cause 
of the United Colonies. 

Can you not picture to yourselves 
how, on a pleasant day in May, 107 
years ago, where we stand to-day, little 
groups of plain and earnest citizens 
were discussing the progress of this ap- 
proaching collision between them and 
their distant and ignorant ruler, who 
was seeking by unwise laws to compel 
thejr ^:'i'r«m::-«ion to a principle repug- 
n vnl iO r \i. u-od and self-respect; who, 
I'orrreiting they were loving subjects, 
sought :o make them his abject slaves? 
Engaged in such themes as these, a 
horseman is described in the distance 
urging his weary steed towards them ; 
travel-stained and dusty, and with 
troubled face, he recites the news of 
Lexington and Concord, and the blood 
of their distant countrymen shed in the 
cause of Liberty. 

The spark has been struck ; the flame 
has been kindled ; and higher and high- 
er it mounts to the sky, destined in its 
conflagration to dest. y the la.st rem- 
nant of British powi . in the United 
Colonies. 

Then it was that tho spirit of Magna 
Charta was revived. Then it was that 
every lesson embodied in English his- 
tory came to mind. In such a time, 
amid such memories, the words of the 
Declaration of Mecklenburg were 
framed ; and can you not hear to-day 
the deep, strong voice of Col. Thomas 
Polk, as he stood at the little court- 
house door, and read aloud to the as- 
sembly the Declaration we have again 
heard to-day? And Graham, and Rhees, 
i and Kennedy, and Davidson, and Mor- 



8ENATNR BAYATL'S SPEECH. 



rison, and Barry, were the committee 
to transmit copies to the Continental 
Congress at Philadelphia. And Col. 
Thomas Polk and Dr. Joseph Kennedy, 
were appointed a committee to pur- 
chase powder and flints and ball tor 
use by the militia of Mecklenburg coun- 
ty. 

The men of that day knew the value 
of the militia. They had declared : 

"That all able-bodied men in the 
State should be trained for its defence 
under such regulations, restrictions and 
exceptions as the General Assembly 
should direct by law." 

They knew then, as we know now, 
that the art of true obedience is the 
best guide to the art of true command, 
and that while learning to obey, men 
best become fitted to rule, that men 
comprehend how to rule, when they 
have learned how to be ruled. 

They recognized the truth of what 
old Sam Johnson said of courage— 
"which," said he, "is reckoned the great- 
est of all virtues, because, unless a man 
has that virtue he has no security for 
preserving any other." 

Solon said to Croesus when in osten- 
tation he showed him his gold : "Sir, if 
any other come thart hath better iro7i 
than you he will be master of all this 
gold." Therefore, said my Lord Bacon, 
■"Let any prince or State think soberly 
ot his forces except his militia of na- 
tives be of good and valiant soldiers." 

It cannot be said, fellow-citizens, that 
the people of Mecklenburg, or indeed of 
North Carolina, ever exhibited a taste 
for peace without honor. They seem 
ever to haye been restless under op- 
pression, unhappy when suspicious that 
their rights were to be infringed. The 
name of the "Hornets' Nest" was not 
misapplied to this locality, and those 
who rudely disturbed it were apt to 
discover the truth of the simile. 
In the month of May, 1771, the battle 



of the Alamance proved to the Koyal 
Governor Try on that the Eegulators of 
the county which now bears that name, 
were a people not to be bullied or scared 
out of their rights; and I myself have 
knowledge of how history repeated it- 
self precisely one hundred years later, 
when another Governor, Ilolden by 
name, sought by the same means em- 
ployed by Tryon to repress by brutal 
force, social and political disturbance in 
the same counties, and met with the 
same success. The history of this last 
campaign can be read in the testimony 
and reports of May, 1871, to the Con- 
gress of the United States. 
And as— 
"Now after ages of sorrow and wrong 

The lark still carols the selfsame song 
As she did to the uncurst Adam." 

So to the human heart the song of the 
passions continues, and it is the same 
as it was when its first owners found 
themselves outside the Garden of Eden. 
It is beset with the same seductions, 
and IS as weak to resist as ever. 

The men who founded the civiliza- 
tion of this country were especially en- 
dowed with the attributes needful for 
the work, and their records written not 
merely in words, but emblazoned on the 
very face of nature herself, here and all 
around us, speak to-day in the contrasts 
in physical fact betweeiv- the days of 
1776 and 1876. 

They were hard-working and indus- 
trious, because the struggle for subsis- 
tence compelled them to be so; they 
were temperate, hardy, resolute and 
watchful, because without such quali- 
ties they could not have sustained 
themselves in a remote and wild' coun- 
try, in the neighborhood of superior 
numbers of savage and crafty Indians. 
And underlying all, they came here to 
their life-work, with intellects educated 
to the comprehension of the true prin- 



10 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 



ciples of civil and religious liberty, and 
they were animated by convictions 
■which were based in the conscience, 
and illuminated by the rays of a divine- 
ly revealed religion. Under such sanc- 
tions and conditions, moral and intel- 
lectual, they laid the foundations of 
this great State. 

And has human nature changed? 
Have the dangers and temptations 
which beset it, all passed away ? and 
have we the inheritors of a fertile soil, 
discovered by their enterprise and re- 
deemed by their industry and valor 
from savagery, and of institutes of free 
government framed and established by 
their learning and ability, and sealed 
with their life blood: Have we nothing 
more to do than to receive and to en- 
Joy? 

Is our lot one of easy, placid enjoy- 
ment? 

Is there no longer need for the exhi- 
bition and active practice of the same 
virtues that founded and established 
free government, in order to continue 
and maintain it ? 

Are truthfulness, courage, fortitude, 
self-denial, industry and unselfishness 
become obsolete and useless, in our new 
conditions of modern life, with all its 
luxuries, comforts conveniences, and 
countless inventions? 

In other words, has human nature 
changed, or have its manifestations only 
changed in name, in form, in number, 
but not in its reality. 

My fellow countrymen I ^ur work 
of to-day calls upon us to be just as 
watchful, just as prompt, just as reso- 
lute in defence of our rights and our 
welfare, as it did the men in homespun 
who, in this town of Charlotte and 
county of Mecklenburg, assembled to 
make their solemn, single handed de- 
claration of independence of tyranny 
and misrule 107 years ago. 

It is true the manual labor which 



then attached itself in a greater or less 
degree to every station in society has, 
by the invention of machinery and the 
sub-division of pursuits, been lessened^ 
but is less industry, and other kinds of 
labor than with the hands, less requisite, 
or is it not more than necessarry to re- 
spond to the present requirements of 
society as now organized ? 

It is true the farmer can now go to 
his distant field without his rifie, and 
free from danger of the arrow or bul- 
let of his Indian foe. But because his 
agricultural machinery surrounds him» 
is his need of watchful industry the 
less, to enable him profitably to com- 
pete with his rivals in the market ? 

No ; no : we have changed the forms, 
but we have not altered the reality. 

The same blue sky, the same green 
earth, the same breezes, the same rains, 
the same Nature surrounds us to-day, 
and finds us the same human creatures 
as those upon whom the sun shone 
down a century ago in this very spot — 
notwithstanding the fact that Char- 
lotte is no longer a straggling village 
but a beautiful and flourishing city. 

Courage is as much needed now as 
ever in our daily lives. Its tests are 
varied, and we are not called so often 
to face a violent death, or serious perso- 
nal pain or danger, because the spirit of 
force :s differently manifested and is 
more regulated by the operation of the 
spirit of law. 

Instances of personal intrepidity in 
battle and conflict, are countless in the 
chronicles and traditions of the colo- 
nists, who made the Atlantic sea-board 
a continuous battle-field from 1776 to 
1782— but none touch me more than an 
exhibition of our own time. 

But a little while ago a deadly fever 
ravaged the communities in our south- 
western border, and all along the val- 
ley of the Mississippi rose the wail of 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 



11 



sorrow and the cry for help! And at 
such a time were there no knights-er- 
rant—no leaders of the forlorn hope ? 

The hospital records will show how 
young men, trained in the cure of sick 
bodies, and others in the cure of sad 
hearts and sick souls, pale students of 
the healing art, left their homes in the 
North, where dwelt health and happi- 
ness, and, with unfaltering step, went 
down to scenes of suffering and high 
duty, soon alas ! to be the scene of their 
own death. As they fell in the ranks, 
their places were rapidly filled, and 
surely "The noble army of martyrs," 
never had a more ready or splendid body 
of recruits than the quiet geintlemen 
who died in 1878, in their endeavor to 
comfort and save their stricken fellow- 
«ountrymen. 

But are there not other fevers to be 
cured ? Is there not a fever of avari- 
cious and pecuniary gain? Is there 
not the consuming fire of personal and 
political ambition, filling the breasts of 
men and urging them to gratify its de- 
mands at the cost of all considerations 
of delicacy, virtue and a generous sense 
of public welfare? 

Are there not local jealousies, sec- 
tional animosities, tempting men to nar- 
row and unpatriotic action ? 

In short, is not the sense of narrow 
personal aggrandizement — the desire to 
procure personal advancement and dis- 
tinction, to reach place and power in 
politics, to-day threatening the welfare, 
the honor, and the credit of North Caro- 
lina, as dangerously as ever did British 
oppression or Indian warfare in May, 
1775 ? And must not these foes of North 
Carolina of to-day be met and over- 
thrown by the exercise of the same vii- 
tues that saved her a century ago ? 

Gentlemen ! The enemy comes inadil- 
ferent shape ; he wears a different garb, 
but the evil intent is the same. 



For what did your forefathers strug- 
gle and bleed and die ? For a free gov- 
ernment of laws, and not of men ; to 
prevent the rights of property and per- 
son from falling into untrustworthy 
and unfriendly bands. 

At one time kingly oppression sought 
to take from them their rights and lib- 
erties by force,— to-day you are solicited 
and tempted by personal and partizan 
selfishness, and undermined rather than 
openly overthrown. 

There is ever a struggle of forces go- 
ing on in society between those that 
would destroy and those that would 
preserve it. Selfishness and cor- 
ruption are all the time making com- 
binations with ignorance and credulity, 
to obtain public power for other than 
public uses. 

The form in which robbery is accom- 
plished makes no difference to the vic- 
tim ; ruin can be brought upon a coun- 
try by false interpretations of its con- 
stitution, or under the pretences of leg- 
islation ; while a corrupt and vicious ad- 
ministration of any government, how- 
ever wise its form, will wholly defeat 
and overthrow the real objects of all 
government— the care of property and 
person— as completely as a hostile army 
sword in hand, could openly do the evil 
work. 

And when it becomes plain that the 
public welfare is imperilled, a true 
man's duty is the same under all cir- 
cumstances, simply to do his best to 
save and protect it, and in performing 
this duty the class of virtues brought 
into exercise are always the same. 

If open, violent war assails his gov- 
ernment and people, he will not only 
reject all offers of rank and pay, all 
temptations of the false ambitions 
which the enemy may offer— but he will 
go at once into the service of his coun- 
try in just such capacity as he is en- 



12 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 



abled, but serve her he will, either in 
•high rank, or in the ranks. 

If public safety, and the honor and 
welfare of his State is assailed by a po- 
litical foe;— if profligate self-seekers 
combine to capture the legislative and 
other powers, and the weapons employ- 
•edare those of corruption, combined 
with ignorance and vice,— he must shun 
all such contaminating alliances, and 
spurn all offers of power, place or for- 
tune to be acquired at the cost of the 
•welfare and reputation of his State and 
the respect of the good and true. 

He must steadily maintain the organ- 
ization which he believes will guard the 
public councils from the presence and 
intrusion of the venal, ignorant and in- 
competent; he will sedulously maintain 
upon the bench, learning, purity and 
justice, and bestow executive power in 
honest, intelligent and trustworthy 
band^. By his vote and efforts he will 
prove himself the unselfish, steady sol- 
dier of North Carolina, on the same 
principles and under as many trials and 
difficulties as the men of Mecklenburg 
of 1115. 

There is courage especially required 
at this day in the United States of as 
liigh a type as any hitherto exhibited in 
our history. I mean the courage to pro- 
claim and maintain opinions and con- 
victions upon public questions, which 
.are in opposition to temporary public 
clamor. To stand by the truth, until 
the sober second thought of the people 
shall come— as it always ultimately 
will— to its rescue. 
There are hundreds of men who would 
risk their lives in the heat of battle, 
who will not vote or speak, even upon 
the most important public questions, in 
a way that they believe would subject 
them to the disapproval of a majority 
of their fellow-^citizens. They have not, 
in short, the same spirit of conscien- 
tious independence and public devotion 



which breathed in the Declaration of 
Mecklenburg in May, 1775, and was 
caught up and reiterated by all the col- 
onies in chorus on the 4th of July, a 
year and two months later. 

The Mecklenburg men pledged "their 
lives, their fortunes, and their oaost 
sacred honor" to the cause of liberty 
and independence. It cost them severe- 
ly afterwards to keep that pledge, hut 
they did it. 

And I am persuaded that the one 
thing the politics of the United States 
needs, and will always need (and which 
is needed by every people, no matter 
under what form of government they 
may live) is the same spirit of noble 
courage, to assert an independent con- 
viction of the truth, in any and every 
essential question affecting the welfare, 
the honor and Ifhppiness of our coun- 
try. 

It is true, we have prohibited the 
grant of any title of nobility by a State 
or by the United States ; but a system 
of practical politics that tends to pro- 
hibit great men and noble men, as well 
as titles, Avill end in giving power to a 
set of political spoilsmen and parasites, 
who, in that hour of trial, which must 
come to every country, will prove their 
total want of those conscientious, man- 
ly, self-respecting qualities, which make 
men faithful friends and safe counsel- 
lors in private life, and trustworthy and 
patriotic public servants. 

It lies in public opinion to reward or 
punish, to encourage or discourage, 
these qualities which make the true 
cornerstone of good government, what- 
ever may be its form. 

We train up our children to look back 
to the patriotic examples of the men 
who, with truth in their hearts and 
courage on their foreheads, steadily in 
the face of the frowns of power and the 
seductions of ease and gain, served their 
country unselfishly, and secured its gov- 



SENATOR BA YARD'S SPEECH. 



ernment on the foundations of virtue 
and honor. 

Such traditions are of untold value 
to a people; they are a treasure which 
grows with its use; they give a tone of 
character ; they create a moral atmos- 
phere which permeates every branch 
of their government and strengthens 
every institution, 

If we would create such memories for 
posterity, let us create such hopes for 
the living ; let us encourage the actors 
in public events of our own day and 
generation to feel that— "last infirmity 
of noble mind " — the ambition to live 
in the memory of a grateful people. 

In the generation of such a public 
spirit, the baser passions of politics will 
be rebuked and discredited; so that 
time- serving and petty self-seeking will 
give place to a nobler solicitude for the 
public wefare; and in which the el- 
ements of an enduring and real nation- 
al greatness will be found. 

When John of England, with knitted 
brow and trembling hand set his seal 
at Runnymede to the Great Charter, he 
was ** girt with many a Baron bold " 
who stripped him of undue powers in- 
imical to the safety, honor and self re- 
spect of free-born Englishmen, and 
what the Barons gained that day for 
themselves they could not keep from all 
other classes of their countrymen. 

The Federal Constitution is our Mag- 
na Charta; it contains every principle 
for which freedom struggled in Eng- 
land, through the nine centuries, from 
the Saxon Alfred to George the Third ; 
and additional checks upon governmen- 
tal power, and safeguards to individu- 
als and minorities were placed in its 
provisions. 

The Mecklenburg Declaration was 
the first clarion note heard among the 
mountains of North Carolina, whose 
echo reverberated through the Provin- 
cial Congress of this State, until it 



reached the Continental Congress at- 
Philadelphia, and ended only in the 
Federal Constitution of the great Union, 
of States. 
"Cervantes smiled Spain's Chivalry away." 

said Lord Byron ;— and Burke nearly a 
century ago despairingly declared : 

"The age of chivalry has gone ; that 
of sophists, economists, and calcula- 
tors has succeeded." 

As an institution this is true, but aa 
to that which created chivalry, it is 
surely untrue, and never will be true ; 
—for it was not the helmet, nor shield, 
nor corslet, nor lance, nor spurs, that 
made the true knight ;— but the brave 
heart, the dauntless will, the unselfish 
and gentle soul that lay within his breast.. 
The plain attire, the homespun gaib 
may cover— nay does cover to-day, all 
that made chivalry, first the precursor, 
and at last the hand-maid of religion 
and law. 

Sir Walter Raleigh landed his expe- 
ditions on your shores three hundred 
years ago, and his name is linked with 
the capital of the State— whose soil he 
was destined never to see. 

History tells us how he gained favor 
with the Virgin Queen of England by 
casting his costly and embroidered 
mantle before her in the mire, that she 
might pass dry shod. In this lofty 
courtesy he typified the dignity of un- 
hesitating service to his lawful ruler. 

And because we are citizens of a Re- 
public, is there nothing to which we 
owe unhesitating service? Is there 
no cause in which we would as willing- 
ly throw down our cloak, and if need 
be go down with it ? Is not Queen Car- 
olina as worthy of devotion as Queea 
Elizabeth ? and are not the men of Car- 
olina as devoted to the cause of her 
safety, honor and welfare? 

Filled with such a sentiment, how 
infinitely poor and small become the 



14 



SENATOR BA YARD'S SPEECH. 



tradiDg,s and hucksterings of patronage 
and petty politics ! How much better 
and nobler and wiser, to be true to the 
fortunes of a grand old common wealth, 
than to see them endangered at the be- 
hests of selfish and self-seeking person- 
al ambition. 

Our dangers to-day are not from a 
savage and treacherous foe, whose 
scalping-knife and keen arrow were 
the dread of our forefathers ; nor a tyr- 
anical ruler across the sea in all the big- 
otry of power, seeking to oppress and 
strangle freedom. But evils and dan- 
gers arising from a false arrangement 
of the forces of our government threat- 
en us on every side. 

We must recur to the fundamental 
principles upon which liberty was 
founded, and which must be revived, 
If liberty ia to be maintained. 

It was in the balance of its forces 
that the equilibrium of free society was 
found. Each force needs recognition 
and in the distribution and diffusion of 
power safety was found. Observing this 
rule powers were not suffered to accu- 
mulate.— Not being consDlidated men 
of moderate abilities were enabled to 
execute them. — No governing class was 
was created, and it was never intended 
to have a privileged class. Property 
was to be made secure by law and to 
have its due weight, but the political 
power of wealth, or plutocracy was nev- 
er to be permitted. Numbers were to 
have weight, but the whole arrange- 
ment of our government, showed the 
principle of absolute numerical majori- 
ty was never admitted, but, on the con- 
trary rendered impossible in every de- 
partment. 

Elections were made frequent,'forthe 
purpose of bringing the holders of offi- 
cial power, back to the people at stated 
periods, to receive judgment upon their 
administration ;— but whoever contem- 



plated that which we now see of every 
engine of public power ? 

Legislative, executive and judicial, 
all lent to prolong the term of power, 
and prevent a change or reformation of 
administration. 

Nearly a century and a half ago, an 
English statute, punished by heavy-fine 
the solicitation of a vote by an officer 
of the government, for, said Black- 
stone : 

"To use the offices of society to con- 
trol society, what is this but to cut up 
government by its very roots." 

And yet here in the United States 
to-day, the official who does not active- 
ly exercise his powars, and use his salary 
and influence to prolong party power, 
is deprived of his office for that reason. 
Do not men sit openly in public to re- 
ceive involuntary contributions from 
the civil officers of the government, 
just as regularly as the collector of law- 
ful taxes? Are not thanks publicly 
rendered by men high in station, for 
the debauchery of a canvass and over- 
throw of the free elections in a great 
State? 

The campaign of to-day is against 
the allied armies of greed and corrup- 
tion, combining with ignorance and 
corruptibility, to use the powers of the 
government for personal and party 
ends. The weapons to be used in op- 
position to these forces, are education, 
moral and intellectual, conscience and 
dignity, appealing to all that is best in 
men's natures to preserve those things 
which are most essential to their wel- 
fare. 

And now, my countrymen, my part 
in the commemoration of the Declara- 
tion of Independence by the freemen of 
Mecklenburg county has been perform- 
ed. No one is more conscious than I of 
the imperfect manner in which the duty 
assigned me has been executed, for 
when I yielded to the friendly influence 



SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 



15 



of your invitation, I confess I did not 
:3ufficiently weigh the difficulties of the 
attempt to reconcile the demands of 
legislative duties with the preparation 
of such an address. 

When again I shall see the good peo- 
ple of Mecklenburg county I know not, 
but I cannot forbear the wish, that from 
the rich quaries of the old North State, 
marble and granite will be found with 
which to build a fitting monument to 
the simple and heroic men, to com- 
memorate whose deeds we have here 
to-day assembled. 

Surely as Timrod, the sweet poet of 



South Carolina, has sung : 

"Somewhere waiting for Its birth 
The Shalt lies In the stone." 

The time has come when the shaft 
should rise, and be inscribed with the 
names of the signers of the Mecklen* 
burg Declaration of Independence, and 
hither shall be led the youth of this 
and later generations yet unborn, to 
learn the lesson how men should live 
and die for their country. 

To the dead I have paid my tribute of 
respect and honor; to the living I have 
tendered the earnest and afEectionate 
counsel of a friend;— and my task is 
done. 






LBAg'05 



